Midway game gets Boeheim out of Syracuse

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim (right) and SDSU head coach Steve Fisher at the press conference on the USS Midway announced the upcoming "Battle on the Midway" basketball game to be played on the ship on Nov. 9.
— Earnie Grafton

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim (right) and SDSU head coach Steve Fisher at the press conference on the USS Midway announced the upcoming "Battle on the Midway" basketball game to be played on the ship on Nov. 9.
— Earnie Grafton

You can listen to Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim speak passionately about how “we’ve lost sight in this country of how important it is to honor the military,” how his team has “a very close relationship” with the soldiers at Fort Drum in upstate New York, how privileged they are to play in the Nov. 9 “Battle on the Midway” against San Diego State on the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum.

Or you can pore through pages and pages of Syracuse’s nonconference schedules in 36 seasons under Boeheim.

It says the same thing.

“One guy asked me once, why do you play all those (nonconference) games in Syracuse and New York,” said Boeheim, who hasn’t played an one-off, early season game in the Pacific time zone in 14 seasons. “I said, ‘Well, if you really want to coach 36 years, it’s a pretty good idea to play a lot of games close to home.

“My good friend Mark Few wanted me to come out to Gonzaga. I told him I’d be happy to come out there, I’m just not coming with my team.”

So how do you pry Boeheim and the Orange from the upper right corner of the United States in November and December?

You lay a hardwood court next to the conning tower on one of the U.S. Navy’s most fabled aircraft carriers and host a season-opening basketball game the Friday before Veterans Day. Boeheim is on record saying he doesn’t think college athletes handle the cross-country trip well, but he’ll load a young Orange team on a plane and venture into the great unknown of the Pacific time zone for this.

“I have to be a little honest here,” Boeheim said on a breezy Wednesday afternoon at the Midway, with sweeping views of downtown and Coronado. “When they asked me, do you want to play a game on the ship in San Diego, I said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ And the next day they told me you’re playing San Diego State. I said yes before I heard that part of it.”

It was part of the ribbing between old buddies, two of college basketball’s most veteran and iconic coaches.

Al Kidd, president of the San Diego Sports Commission and part of the game’s promotions group, had Mayor Jerry Sanders flip a coin to determine which coach spoke first at the news conference. Sanders’ flip rolled off the podium and he declared, before examining at it: “San Diego State wins.”

To which Boeheim cracked: “Mayor, are you reffing the game, too?”

Fisher: “He plays that 2-3 zone (defense) that makes it difficult to get inside anyway. It will be a challenge to shoot threes in the outdoors. Hopefully we will be able to get Mayor Sanders to get us to the free throw line a few times in this game.”

Boeheim: “I did check the weather in the November area, and there’s usually a 10-15 mph wind. We’ll be able to play our zone a little bit tighter out here.”

Kidding aside, Fisher admitted that facing Syracuse – even with an Aztecs team projected in some preseason Top 15s – presents more problems than your average perennial college basketball power that spent much of last season ranked No. 1. Boeheim’s unique spin on an old standard, the 2-3 zone, will force Fisher to alter his usual preseason practice routine.

“We’re going to have to be very aware that we put in zone offense early,” Fisher said, “because usually that’s the last thing you put in. If you look at our league, our league has mostly man-to-man teams. We’ll have to negate the outdoors to some degree and not shoot 30 threes. That’s easier said than done.

“But, you know, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

So will the game’s local organizers, who are essentially doing this from scratch.

The 2011 Carrier Classic was played across the bay on the USS Carl Vinson and run by a different promotions company in conjunction with the U.S. Navy. With no active ships available this November in San Diego, Morale Entertainment announced it wouldn’t host a 2012 game here. Locally-based Syndicus Entertainment and the USS Midway Museum stepped into the void.

Kidd said temporary seating will create a “mini-bowl” around the court that holds between 3,500 and 4,000, about half the announced capacity on the Carl Vinson. Tickets, accordingly, will be beyond tight.

Each school will get an allotment – probably in the mid-hundreds – to sell to boosters and donors. Sponsors will command a block, as will the yet-to-be-announced national TV partner. The hope, Kidd said, is to make about 1,000 tickets available to the general public.

What happens if it rains?

The original plan for the Carrier Classic was to move inside to the ship’s hangar below deck, but that was abandoned two days before tipoff and promoters basically rolled the dice. They got lucky. It started pouring … two hours after the game ended.

Kidd examined several options – local casinos, the downtown convention center, even Petco Park with a temporary roof – before reserving Nov. 9 at Valley View Casino Center (formerly the San Diego Sports Arena), which would have an extra 10,000 seats.

“Most likely, 36 to 48 hours before we’ll have to make a decision,” Kidd said. “We’d have a VIP area for our ticket holders. My guess would be there’d be a ton of walk-up (sales).”

It’s a chance Boeheim is willing to take, committed as he is to the concept and the cause. Thursday morning, Boeheim and Fisher quietly scheduled a private tour of a local naval hospital to visit injured servicemen, away from the cameras and tape recorders.